Sen. Chuck Grassley has fought the ill-conceived Waters of the U.S. rule at every opportunity. The Environmental Protection Agency has lost in the courts over overstepping its bounds on the rule. The rule is stayed until a final court ruling, creating uncertainty. Grassley today voted in favor of an amendment from Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota to defund the enforcement of the rule. The amendment received 56 votes (the vote was 56-42) but fell short because it required 60 votes. Grassley made the following comment on his vote.
“This isn’t about whether the Clean Water Act is beneficial. Of course it makes sense to require a permit to discharge potential pollutants into waterways, but when you define 97 percent of the land in Iowa as a waterway, you’re losing sight of the law’s intended focus. For instance, it makes sense to require a permit before dumping dirt or rocks into a river, but what the EPA defines as a waterway is so broad, it could require permission before moving soil on dry land. Ironically, this would discourage a lot of common sense projects to prevent erosion or control runoff that involve moving soil in areas now designated a ‘water of the United States.’ That would hamper ongoing efforts in Iowa to improve water quality under the Iowa Water Quality Plan, which the EPA approved.
“The result of this rule isn’t cleaner water, but a bigger roll of red tape. It won’t make our water any cleaner, but it would limit the property rights of individual Americans and control over their own land. Under EPA’s definition, WOTUS affects everyone from farmers to construction companies to golf course managers in their day-to-day decision making. These are all fields that create and sustain jobs. The rule is an absurd use of power to further an agency’s own political agenda.”
